Lazio shock Inter to lift Italian Super Cup

Unfancied Lazio ruffled the feathers of Serie A champions Inter Milan in the Bird’s Nest in Beijing Saturday night to win the Italian Super Cup 2-1.

Lazio captain Tommaso Rocchi superbly lobbed Inter keeper Julio Cesar after finding a gap between the Inter defence just after the hour to clinch the winner.

Two minutes earlier, Rocchi’s 61st minute freekick found its way through the Inter wall and rebounded off keeper Cesar, bobbling up into the path of Lazio’s Brazilian midfielder Matuzalem, who slotted home to the delight of several thousand Chinese Lazio fans.

The quick double stunned Inter’s galaxy of stars and their thousands of Chinese fans into a rare silence after they had controlled affairs on and off the pitch for most of the tense final.

Lifting the cup was a sweet moment for Lazio manager Davide Ballardini, who is charged with unifying the Rome club after it finished a disappointing 10th last season.

“To win a cup against Inter gives great satisfaction. We needed to play well, you need to be perfect against Inter, and we needed a little luck. But I am satisfied with the result. I think Lazio really wanted to win,” he said.

Staring defeat in the face, the normally cool Inter manager Jose Mourinho brought on Patrick Vieira and replaced Serbian captain Dejan Stankovic with Mario Balotelli.

But it was new signing and Cameroon star Samuel Eto’o — who had threatened several times — who fired into the roof of the Lazio net in the 75th minute to rally Inter into a frantic search for a dramatic comeback.

Inter had controlled the game but were frustrated numerous times by the excellent Nestor Muslera in the Lazio goal.

Another Inter new arrival, Argentine Diego Milito, rolled the ball past the stranded Muslera in the 81st minute only to be ruled agonisingly offside.

Eto’o then went just wide with a freekick from just outside the box in injury time.

And though Mourinho’s men laid siege to the Lazio goal in the dying minutes, it was the team from Rome who lifted the cup for a memorable party spoiler in China’s Olympic stadium.

Mourinho said the result highlighted the need to find a playmaker to complement his new star arrivals, but he was pleased with the spirit and aggression of his side, especially in the final 15 minutes.

“I thought we played fantastically when we were two-nil down. We’re sad but I am completely satisfied with the way we played. But I am disappointed about the result.”

The Bird’s Nest played centre stage to China’s highly acclaimed and choreographed opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympics and the final was the first significant competitive sporting event to be played in the iconic stadium since the end of the Games.

The stadium, made of a lattice of cement and steel, has largely served as a tourist attraction since the Games ended, prompting criticism that many costly Olympic venues are sitting idle and not being used for sporting events.

A year ago to the day, however, football chants replaced drummers, acrobatic dancers and singers with many among the 70,000 in the 80,000 seater stadium sporting replica football shirts of their Italian heroes.

The Italian Super Cup is the season curtain raiser contested by the winners of Serie A and the domestic Italian Cup.

It is usually played at the home of the Serie A champions. But in a bid to broaden the appeal of Italian football it has been contested overseas several times before.